Wichita eagle., 1887-07-21
NEWSPAPER WORK
WHAT GEORGE ALFRED TOWNSEND
SAYS TO AN INTERVIEWER.

"Gath's" Views of International Copy.
rfght-Advice TO Young Writers-The
Noted Journalists Beginning-The Set
Element at GapIand-The Newspaper.
"A man can survive his mistakes, bTJ not
his idleness. l indulge the full faith tina my
novels, or rather historical romances, viii be
my self-respect and partial subsistence after
it is forgotten, except incidentally that 1
wrote thirty years for newspapers"
"You believe, then, in American itera-
tureF'
@If / did not I would believe the land
doomed. | believe we shall be a corrupt
country, to a large extent as long as we have
dishonest publishers and politicians who do
not know WHAT international copyright
means. A country which protects for
eigner's gun and not an American book IS the
last of the Barbary powers. l wonder that
President Cleveland does not feel, from his
sisters experience with a review publisher,
that the pirates of that trade ought to have
the government destroy them. Stealing a
book to read it never made a man noble.
Our people must learn to read with honest
hands, and to estimate book enough to wish
to present It in a library, as they cannot do
with the cheap unbound folio books. A few
nights ago all Washington society and gov
eminent went to see play that raised s., 600
for charity, made a manager rich and kept
employed many actors for year. 1t has
paid the English author from America
SIS, 200. yet i is thought that literature is not
a useful art"
WRITING A NOVEL.
GLOW long did it take you to write Katy
Of Catoctin'g'
'Two years to write it, twenty years to
get the material. TO Jacob they seemed but
day."
''How long have you been with The Cincin-
natl Enquirer now"
"Eleven years this May. That paper has a
liberal and modest publisher, who is not
grudging his writer's scope and influence. 1t
is this privilege have enjoyed which nettles
the small fry of writers in my distant baili-
wick who relegate themselves to the back
ground and bark there. My sincere advice
to young writers is to pay no attention to the
gossip of the shop; not TO talk salaries over,
like the lower range Of actors; not to herd
with unworthy fellow craftsmen, but seek
society from other avocationS if it is less dis
turbing to the mind.
'At the beginning 1 gave my confidence
too freely, was made sensitive by news carry
ing friends, and wasted time shooting rival
tidbits. No ingenuity can now get to my
mind any offensive paragraph. While they
are proofs of ones vitality, they should no
more be read by the subject of them than a
BLACKBOARD should be allowed top pirate in your
house. My mail is read over by one who
knows me well, and what will do he no good
is thrown out and | never see it. | hardly
enter three times year any newspaper Office.
Twenty-seven years ago | aspired to be a
special or absent correspondent. 1t was like
pulling an anchor up alone, but it came slow
ly. next felt the corresponding desire for
location-to have my tools and books and en-
vironment ready, so as not to waste my time
and tissues and become common at summer
resorts and 50 on. This desire, also, is nearly
fulfilled l consider that / am just ready for
work now"
''Did you not spend your earnings for some
years."
"For twenty years spent all the money in
seeing that did not spend for books For
six or seven years only have paid some at
tention to accommodating. AS 1 am but 46
years old ought now to be good for fourteen
years of realization"